Cactus Weekend Opening Lecture: Cacti & Succulents from Around the World

Friday, September 27, 2024 | Reception at 6:30 p.m., Lecture 7 – 8:30 p.m.

Join Joey Santore, botanist, artist, science communicator, author and YouTube educator, for an exposition of members of the Cactus Family and other dryland plants from around the world, featuring plants from South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, and Namibia.

Speaker: Joey Santori, Crime Pays but Botany Doesn’t
Fee: Free with membership or Garden admission. Free for students with ID. Reservations requested.

About the Speaker: Joey Santore is a botanist, artist, science communicator, author and YouTube educator who has produced over 400 episodes on plant ecology and evolution featuring plant species from all over the world for the YouTube channel Crime Pays But Botany Doesn’t. In his videos, Santore travels internationally to habitats to film the ecologies of the plants that grow there. He moved to South Texas in 2020 and two years later formed Thornscrub Sanctuary, a non-profit dedicated to land conservation for the unique habitat of the South Texas borderlands known as Tamaulipan Thornscrub. Thornscrub Sanctuary hopes to purchase a small parcel of land to build an education center and research station. The goals of this project are to both conserve and propagate rare native plants for reintroduction into habitat as well as to serve as a research station to host school groups and visiting researchers. Santore has been featured in numerous articles, interviews and publications for his photography, video and documentation of rare plants and plant habitat.